One of the greatest hurdles a start-up company will face is getting customers before the company has even started. Many assume that a company just starting out may not have the resources necessary to fully perform, so why take the chance? This is a mentality that you must stop as a new business owner. There are a few universal tricks listed below that work well for a start-up company of any kind:
Tricks to Get Clients Hooked on Your Company
Market – A large part of bringing in new customers is your marketing. If you have the right kind of marketing, your customers may not even know you are a start-up company. If your website looks professional and you have knowledgeable employees, your customers will have no reason not to go with your services. Consider local marketing, it is often more cost effective and produces results. Have a marketing plan and the customers will slowly but surely start adding up.
Contacts – Another great way to nab those first customers is through family, friends, and any contacts you may have in your phonebook. Even if you think these specific people would not be interested, ask them to spread the word to everyone they know. Ideally, you would have a great email message to send out to everyone that your friends can forward to everyone they know. Through a ripple effect, this should give you plenty of exposure.
Promotions – Giving away discounts or free gifts is a great way to get new customers. However, be weary that there are a lot of companies out there that offer this and don’t follow through, leaving many customers skeptical of free gifts. A good idea would be to bring in new customers with the other ideas first, and then offer a gift if those customers refer someone else. At this point, you will have the people who know you are serious being offered the gifts, so the incentive should work better.
Network – Whenever you have the chance to go to any sort of community event (or personal event), attend and plan on discussing your new business. People are far more likely to take a leap of faith with someone they have seen face to face as opposed to an email (especially if the email isn’t personal).
Persistence – Getting a solid customer base is not an easy task, so you need to be persistent. If anyone expresses even a little bit of interest, you need to pull out every card you have to play. In other words, give potential customers what they want right away – in the end the payoff should outweigh the costs.
Amanda DiSilvestro is a writer on topics ranging from social media to home security systems. She writes for an online resource that gives advice on topics including document software to small businesses and entrepreneurs at Resource Nation.
